This morning I ordered a physical proof of my novel and it should arrive in ten days, so I have at least that long to wait to push the ball forward another inch.
Yesterday I told you in no uncertain terms that I haven't "made it" in writing, but I do kind of have a degree in it now. So now I'm going to give you a lesson on writing fantasy.
Well, honestly this lesson sort of applies to whatever sort of writing you're doing. It's about diction—your word choice—and it basically goes like this:
What words you use (or don't use) when you're writing a particular work make up the pieces of the world your reader builds in their heads.
This is a pretty big thing. It's actually why I rarely write contemporary fiction. What does it mean? It means you can cue a reader in on the kind of places and people they're reading about starting with your first sentence. It means books of certain genres tend to use similar words to describe similar concepts. It means someone who understands the way words create space and can use that constructive power well will be an artful writer regardless of what kind of writing they engage in. Even technical writing.
This isn't the only thing by any means, but it's huge. People who can't do this end up with pretty big communication barriers, and it's mistakes in this realm that I find the most irritating—but also the most difficult to hold against the instigator. I'd put infer/imply swapping and they're/their/there mix-ups on the far end of diction, as they're obvious mistakes.
A better example of a diction mistake is an anachronism. If television didn't exist during the time you're writing about, it should never be mentioned. Except when it should. There's a world of ironic humor that involves placing anachronisms all over settings that shouldn't have them, and a time travel story will be filled with these anyway (a good one will place them well). Also, there is no such thing as an anachronism in contemporary writing, so long as characters are eccentric/eclectic/well-read enough to know the words. That doesn't qualify for, say, people speaking Latin as their first language or something, but anyway.
I'll give another example of word choice that will hopefully illustrate what I'm getting at. In the world of Hearthstead that my cousin and I created, there is no such thing as the undead. There are no necromancers and no ghosts and no zombies digging their way out of shallow graves. Further, the possibility doesn't really cross most people's minds. Because of this, no one uses the word "undead," and the only way you might catch onto this is because there is one character in the series who has a crippling fear of the idea of revenants (undead). Because no one else bothers with the idea, he doesn't think of them as "undead," and his very concept of them is much more vague than our encyclopedic mythologies of the various forms of Risen Dead. Now, when I was writing the book, I could have included the word "undead," but it made more sense for one person not to try to coin a word for something that didn't even exist.
As another example, one of the things I used to do more often than I do now was to create a sense of antiquity to the world by removing all contractions from my narrative and from character's dialogue. It is possible to make natural-sounding dialogue and narration without contractions, even to the point where readers don't necessarily notice the absence (unless they're looking for it), but a people who naturally won't think or speak in contractions is a people who haven't had a reason to compress their speech. It's a remarkably plain way to change things up.
Similarly, if you fill your writing with as many words as possible that contain three or more syllables, no one will take you seriously. Sometimes, what you need is a short, sweet summary.
"'Nuff said."
I might talk more about diction tomorrow, or whatever else I wanna do. I might not have the chance to blog at all, since I'll be across the state and possibly attending a bachelor party. Then Sunday is my cousin's wedding, so maybe I'll get to blog that evening? We'll see. Maybe I'll have some face-punch videos for you for Monday. Like I said, we'll see.
Real quick I have to talk about two things I love. One is that Lego is finally doing stuff with Lord of the Rings, and it is hands down the best thing. Ever. Also, a huge chunk of my video game life has been dedicated to the Final Fantasy Advance games, with their addictive power creep, Dual-wielding glory, and strategy-rpg blend that's just fantastic.
Speaking of Final Fantasy, a friend of mine recently started a thing on Tumblr involving pants and FF, so if you start hearing about Final Pantasy, just remember that I know that guy, and he's even cooler than FP makes him seem.
And I think that's all for now.
Ciao.
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